I N T E L L I G E N T T E C H N O L O G Y SCALING

The survey found that more data centre leaders are reducing their reliance on utility grids by investing in on-site power for rapidly scaling data centres.

The report also revealed that power availability is driving data centre development decisions as the industry moves into a new set of power-friendly regions. Together, these findings suggest a significant structural market shift for‘ AI factories’ and other highdensity data centres.

The report’ s findings indicate that:

• Power availability is creating new geographic winners and losers. Texas is poised to capture nearly 30 % of US data centre market share by 2028 and Georgia’ s market share is expected to grow by 75 % from 4 % of the total data centre market to 7 % as developers expand deeper into the Southeast. In contrast, California, Oregon, Iowa and Nebraska’ s respective relative market shares are expected to drop by more than 50 %.

• More data centres are approaching gigawatt scale. Over 50 % of new data centre campuses are predicted to exceed 500 MW by 2035 and nearly one-third of new data centre campuses are expected to exceed 1 GW, with each 1 GW campus consuming roughly as much electricity as the entirety of San Francisco.

• The power expectation gap is widening in key hubs. Utilities’ projected delivery timelines are approximately 1.5 –

2 years longer than hyperscalers and colocation providers expect. Over the past six months, the expectation gap has widened in three critical hubs – Northern Virginia, the Bay Area and Atlanta.

The survey shows data centre developers plan to make big bets in off-grid power. Hyperscalers and colocation providers expect that roughly one-third of data centres in 2030 will use 100 % on-site power – a 22 % increase from the previous report six months ago. Developers surveyed believe that, by 2030, on-site power will be a leading solution to minimising development timelines and costs.

Higher-voltage and DC electrical architectures are moving from roadmap to reality.

As AI campuses scale to gigawatts, operators are redesigning power systems to handle denser loads and faster build schedules, the survey shows with 45 % of respondents expecting to adopt direct-current DC distribution architectures in their new data centres by 2028. These designs are likely to be incorporated into data centres entering development this year.

“ Data centre and AI factory developers can’ t afford delays. Our analysis and survey results show that they’ re moving into power-advantaged regions where capacity can be secured faster – and increasingly designing campuses to operate independently of the grid,” said Natalie Sunderland, Bloom Energy’ s Chief Marketing Officer.“ The surge in AI demand creates a clear opportunity for states that can adapt to support large-scale AI deployments at speed.” �

32 www. intelligentdatacentres. com